Over the years, the dishonesty of the 2008 campaign has become obvious — the grossly low estimates of construction costs and ticket prices, the grossly high estimates of ridership and jobs created, and the false assertion that private investors would be eager to help fund the project without any subsidies. But nothing has slowed state officials from hurrying to spend billions on the project’s first segment in the Central Valley.

The chief protection taxpayers have always had is the very specific limits on the project included in the 2008 initiative. On Friday, this protection finally kicked in. Sacramento Superior Court Judge Michael Kenny ruled that the rail project violated the initiative’s “plain language” requiring the state to identify funding for the entire initial segment and to receive all necessary environmental approvals before construction could start.

Kenny didn’t halt the project for now and plans to hold another hearing to determine where to go from here, so taxpayers should still be nervous.

But if Proposition 1A’s language continues to be taken seriously, our long bullet-train nightmare may well be over.